"CATCH YOU FUCKERS AT A BAD TIME?"

Saloum

SALOUM (2021) is kind of an action movie, kind of a western, ultimately a horror story. The promotional materials classify it as a “southern,” because it’s from Senegal. It might be the first movie I’ve seen from a Congolese director; his name is Jean Luc Herbulot, and this is his second feature, after DEALER (2014), but he also created a TV show called Sakho & Mangane, which is on Netflix. SALOUM has some ghosty business in it, though, so it gets to be on Shudder.

Before it morphs into a haunting supernatural folk tale, it’s a swaggering, stylish action movie set to bouncy African hip hop and a great score by French dance producer Reksider. And it stars this trio of badass soldier guys. Chaka (Yann Gael, who plays Mangane on Sakho & Mangane), Rafa (Roger Sallah), and Minuit (Mentor Ba) – a.k.a. the infamous mercenaries Bangui’s Hyenas – have been hired to snatch a Mexican drug lord and his suitcase of gold bricks during the 2003 coup d’etat in Guinea-Bissau. They’re introduced walking through streets full of dead bodies, their faces obscured by hooded rain ponchos. But as they march rhythmically up a set of stairs they’re differentiated by their footwear: Chaka in boots, Rafa in shiny Gucci loafers, Minuit with bare feet. (read the rest of this shit…)

October 27th, 2022 | 5 Comments »

Double feature: Piranha (1995) / Deadly Spawn (1983)

I haven’t seen Joe Dante’s PIRANHA in many, many years, but here I am reviewing the remake. No, not Alexandre Aja’s Dimension Films version PIRANHA 3D (which I did review when it came out in 2010), but the 1995 Corman production directed by Scott P. Levy (MIDNIGHT TEASE, THE ALIEN WITHIN).

This thing was made for Showtime, and I never got Showtime, but the reason I remembered it existed was because I knew Punky Brewster herself, Soleil Moon Frye (KID 90) was in it. That was enough to lure me in. (Get it?) I guess she was in a couple horror movies (INVITATION TO HELL, PUMPKINHEAD II) but I’m actually kinda surprised they didn’t resurrect her in the post-SCREAM era! Maybe they tried but she was happy just doing cartoon voices.

I have to admit I didn’t remember the original enough to realize until reading the Wikipedia summary that this remake barely alters its script. Alex Simon (BLOODFIST VIII: TRAINED TO KILL) is credited as the writer, but it’s so close original writers Richard Robinson and John Sayles get both “based on the screenplay by” and “story by” credits. (read the rest of this shit…)

October 26th, 2022 | 14 Comments »

Double feature: Bruiser (2000) / The Faculty (1998)

During this year’s October viewing I wanted to revisit a few things that I consider lesser movies from directors I like, that I haven’t seen since they came out decades ago. You know – just to be sure.

I started with a forgotten later one from George A. Romero – his last non-living-dead-related movie, BRUISER. I was disappointed in it at the time, but that was 22 years ago, and I’d had high expectations for it since he hadn’t had a movie in 7 years. There was that gap between his Hollywood stint in the early ‘90s and his return in the new millennium, and it was in the middle of that period that I became obsessed with DAWN OF THE DEAD and KNIGHTRIDERS and everything. So it was a big event when he finally came back with this odd French-American co-production starring a dude from LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS. (read the rest of this shit…)

October 25th, 2022 | 39 Comments »

Men

MEN is this year’s film from Alex Garland (writer of 28 DAYS LATER, SUNSHINE, 28 WEEKS LATER, NEVER LET ME GO, and DREDD, writer/director of EX_MACHINA and ANNIHILATION). It got mixed/semi-positive-ish reviews but its greatest achievement was a D+ Cinemascore, which sometimes can be a badge of honor.* Much more than the other A24 horror releases this year (X, BODIES BODIES BODIES, and PEARL) this is an A24 horror movie in all the senses of the term, so I advise many of you, you know who you are, to move along to the other movies that they have out there available to watch. I kinda liked it though.

Jessie Buckley (JUDY) plays Harper Marlowe, a recently widowed woman trying to treat herself by renting a huge cottage out in the country. She does a little remote work and keeps in regular touch with supportive friend Riley (Gayle Rankin – Sheila the Wolf Girl from GLOW), but mostly I think she’s trying to get away from it all, relax, take long walks and baths, just try to enjoy being by herself.

Of course it’s hard to do that, even out in the country, even out in the woods. You end up running into people. Awkward conversations are had. People know a little about you and think they should give you their opinion on things. You want to tell them why their advice is bad, but you don’t even owe them that, so it’s not worth getting into it. (read the rest of this shit…)

October 24th, 2022 | 15 Comments »

Watcher

WATCHER – not to be confused with the Netflix show The Watcher or the Keanu Reeves movie THE WATCHER or the early UPN anthology series hosted by Sir Mix-a-Lot The Watcher – is an excellent psychological horror/suspense thriller that’s a Shudder exclusive and also came out on blu-ray and DVD a few weeks ago. Maika Monroe (INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE) stars as Julia, a young woman who moves to an apartment in Bucharest with her husband Francis (Karl Glusman, THE NEON DEMON).

Francis is American, but his mother is Romanian, and he speaks the language, but Julia doesn’t. So she’s immediately out of sorts from having to have her husband translate what people say to her as well as to speak for her. Then the very first thing she sees when they pull up to their building is a creepy guy (Burn Gorman, PACIFIC RIM) looking out a window across the street. Of course their apartment has a huge window facing right at this dude, but at first she doesn’t worry too much about it. (read the rest of this shit…)

October 21st, 2022 | 7 Comments »

Bodies Bodies Bodies

Though BODIES BODIES BODIES is one of this year’s crop of A24 horror releases, its slick filmatistic style, hedonistic twenty-something characters and aggressive electronical dance music soundtrack remind me more of non-horror A24 movies like SPRING BREAKERS and ZOLA than HEREDITARY or THE WITCH. And for good or bad it’s really not in that slow-burn/moody/atmospheric/symbolic vein – it’s pretty much an Agatha Christie inspired whodunit with some blood and some dark humor.

Sophie (Amandla Stenberg, COLOMBIANA, THE HUNGER GAMES) and Bee (holy shit why did I not recognize Maria Bakalova, Academy Award nominee for BORAT SUBSEQUENT MOVIEFILM?) are a new couple, together for about a month and a half. So it’s a big step that Sophie is bringing Bee to meet her oldest friends. There’s a hurricane coming, and they’re all rich kids, and apparently what rich kids do during a hurricane is hole up at somebody’s parents’ remote mansion and have a party. Honestly it seems like a great idea if you have the resources (events depicted in this movie aside). (read the rest of this shit…)

October 20th, 2022 | 12 Comments »

Savage Lust a.k.a. Deadly Manor

“Motherfucker, there are coffins in the basement!”


SAVAGE LUST (1989) is a terrible title, and I’m not gonna claim the movie is much better. But as far as a first Slasher Search title of ’22 – and maybe the last if I can’t find anything else that seems to fit the bill – it’s surprisingly watchable. I got through it in one sitting!

This is not an official announcement of an ending to Slasher Search – just a realistic assessment that there aren’t many more of what I’m searching for out there. So I’ll share them with you when I find them, but I hope you won’t be disappointed if they end up being few and far between.

I’ll always be open to recommendations for good slashers and other horror I’ve missed from any era. But the idea of Slasher Search is to discover things too obscure to be recommended to me. But the window for finding vintage slasher movies that I haven’t already seen, and that haven’t already been dug up by somebody else, gets narrower by the week. (read the rest of this shit…)

October 19th, 2022 | 21 Comments »

Halloween Ends

HALLOWEEN ENDS, the conclusion to David Gordon Green’s HALLOWEEN trilogy, and part 4 in the HALLOWEEN series (timeline 3), is not what I expected. It’s not what anyone expected, or could’ve predicted. The trailers made it seem like they completely ran out of material. Oh yeah, Laurie fights Michael again. She already tried that in 2018 with 40 years of preparation, hidden weapons and a dungeon. She wanted to do it in HALLOWEEN KILLS but a riot started at the hospital, some asshole bumped into her and the staples on her knife wound tore open. But now it’s years later so she’s gonna do it spontaneously in her kitchen, looks like. Seems redundant.

Oh well. I had faith, because I’ve liked these movies, I like this director. And it paid off. That stuff is in the movie, but it works because it’s about so much more.

(You know I have to dig in deep with a new HALLOWEEN movie, so this is a HEAVY SPOILER REVIEW.)

The cold open takes place in Haddonfield on Halloween, 2019. A young man named Corey (Rohan Campbell, SANTA BABY 2: CHRISTMAS MAYBE) is called last minute to babysit for some rich couple. The kid (Jaxon Goldenberg) is a smartass. They watch John Carpenter’s THE THING together – an obvious but too-perfect-to-pass-up nod to watching THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD in Carpenter’s HALLOWEEN. Fears of Michael Myers are discussed. The kid points out that Michael kills babysitters, not kids. But Corey goes to the kitchen, hears a thump, comes back and can’t find the kid. The mansion is huge. A door is open. A knife is missing. The kid is screaming upstairs. (read the rest of this shit…)

October 17th, 2022 | 60 Comments »

New Patreon post: Lana Wachowski’s Clive Barker comic books

Last December when I was revisiting all the MATRIX movies I started thinking about the trivia that Lana Wachowski had written some comic books before becoming a filmmaker. It caught my attention not only because I’m interested in the evolution of her interests and ideas, but because all of the comics she wrote were based on characters created by Clive Barker, and I’m into that shit.

Other than a little bit of HELLRAISER in the battery farm I never made much of a connection between THE MATRIX and Barker until watching for it this time through. I noted some connections in the reviews, but stayed fascinated enough with the subject that I tracked down and read all 17 Barker comics credited to Lana Wachowski (under her previous name). I thought I could write about it for a Patreon bonus, but I was slow to capitalize on interest in THE MATRIX RESURRECTIONS.

But hey, now there’s a new HELLRAISER! It’s timely again! So check out my findings on each of the comics, in approximate publication order.

CLICK HERE TO READ IT ON PATREON

The piece explores all of Lana Wachowski’s Hellraiser, Nightbreed, and (my favorite) EctoKid comics. To unlock it you just have to sign up for any amount of money, and then you can also read all my reviews of the TWILIGHT series, other exclusive pieces about TV specials and books, some early reviews, and most importantly your contribution keeps me only working part time at the day job so I can keep doing all the good shit here. Thank you, I have such sights to show you because there is no spoon, etc.

 

October 14th, 2022 | 2 Comments »

Accident Man: Hitman’s Holiday

ACCIDENT MAN: HITMAN’S HOLIDAY is the latest real-deal Scott Adkins movie (like, he’s the star, not just a guest appearance), and joins the first ACCIDENT MAN, THE DEBT COLLECTOR and DEBT COLLECTORS as one of the movies that showcase the once-stoic actor’s sense of humor and verbal dexterity along with his trademark flying kicks.

If you’re unfamiliar with ACCIDENT MAN, it was Adkins’ passion project, based on a ‘90s comic strip by Pat Mills and Tony Skinner about elite hitman Mike Fallon, who elaborately plans murders to look like freak accidents. It has a sort of DEADPOOL style of heavy-narration cheekiness, but it’s a top notch indie martial arts movie with a great cast and fights. Ray Stevenson (PUNISHER: WAR ZONE) plays Fallon’s mentor and father figure Big Ray, who runs a pub for colorful assassins called the Oasis. When Mike’s environmental activist girlfriend is murdered, he suspects a conspiracy, and ends up in battles to the death with his colleagues, including ones played by Michael Jai White, Ray Park and Amy Johnston.

Well, that left Mike on bad terms with Big Ray and banned from the Oasis, so the sequel picks up with him working far away in Malta. A crime boss named Mrs. Zuuzer (Flaminia Cinque, Thomas & Friends) gives him jobs and pays him well, the work is easy for him, the weather is beautiful, he has a nice place and a big TV. (read the rest of this shit…)

October 13th, 2022 | 29 Comments »

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